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Now the server has stabilised, Rob has begun work on re-doing some of spawn and I feel like it is a good time to present my ideas on re-doing the hub network as has been mentioned beforehand.

Just to recap, here is the current set-up:

- 5 'old' hubs (NESW and central) - each with 3 local portals (locations divided between them alphabetically), and a 4th portal that links between the remaining 4 old hubs, plus RPS Market (RPS Nova), public farm and old / new lands border.
- 4 'new' hubs (NESW) - each with 3 local portals (locations divided between them alphabetically), and a 4th portal that links between the remaining 3 new hubs and old / new lands border.
- In addition, spawn (which doubles as the central hub) has additional always-on portals to RPS Market, public farm and old / new lands border.

I propose the following system:

- A single hub-linking room, containing 9 always on portals to each of the major hubs (5 old and 4 new).
- Each hub's 4th portal therefore changes from a selectable portal containing the remaining hubs within reach, to always on portals that return you to the hub-linking room.
- Central hub itself moves down below spawn, leaving only the following 4 always-on portals in what is currently the combined central hub / fast movement room: RPS Market (renamed to RPS Nova, as the city itself is more important than the market), Public farm, Hub linking room and if desired, Central Hub (for convenience as you could get there by the new lift in spawn).

Pros:
- All hubs accessible without needing to select, just walk and you are there.
- Newbies not having problems with portals.
- Vastly more space and simplification in spawn.
- Minimal changes to the actual hub locations themselves.
- Easier to travel between old and new lands.

Cons:

- People being used to old system.
- New / old lands border portals now becoming obsolete (not exactly a massive problem though...)
- Central hub not being in the same exact place as the other portals in spawn (although I see this as a plus actually, as it comes under 'simplification' as above).

The only thing we are not sure on is whether upstairs at spawn we should have an always-on portal shortcut to central hub. In spawn you'd already have 2 means of getting there - via the lift and via the all-hub portal (IE go there, then select central hub immediately).

Woah, d0tBrain and Rusty both popping on tonight briefly at the same time? What a great coincidence :)

Work now progresses on the new portal system. It is based mostly on what I posted above, with the exception of central hub now moving (back) to RPS Nova in the slightly-tweaked market.

The general idea is to have portals linking all the hubs in a single location.
To achieve this, each region will have it's own space, with portals located properly (IE north hub is accessed by the portal to the north, east to the east etc).
So we errr... need names for the 2 regions we currently have, as old and new lands isn't going to be a very accurate description when Elt expands it again. For example:

My understanding is that only works on the double flowers.
The other, small but new flowers apparently DO grow with bonemeal on grass, but only in biomes where they'd normally spawn. Which for now, means nowhere sadly.
I will try that out and if valid, will expand the area in public farm and create some of the new biomes so they can be created manually by players.

According to the wiki there is a bug in 1.7.2 that allows you to duplicate flowers you can put in flowerpots (IE all the small ones). Stick the flower in a flower pot, then break the block under the flowerpot and 2 flowers should pop out. I've not tried it myself however.

Thanks to our illustrious leader, vines now only grow vertically down. This means the end of vines spamming an entire area (unless it is one of Wubble's). Vines are now useful again, hurrah!

Also, the newbie training guide is now pretty much complete. It should have area protect so you can't place or remove blocks in it (apart from the single location for testing the block crusher plug-in). If any of you find otherwise, please let us know.

The new hub / portals system is up and running, we hope you find it all a lot simpler. Do remember though that Old Lands Central hub is NOT with the others, it is in the upstairs always-on portal area (IE where we had all the portals before, but now there are just 3) directly in front, located now in RPS Nova's market (Mr Weed will be pleased!).

Also - the Old Lands remains just that, but New Lands is now referred to as Oceania.

[EDIT] I think vines have a tiny bit more freedom than just growing down. They can grow around a concave corner if there is already a vine block above them in the direction they grew from (as technically it still counts as the same block, just a different inner side). But this really isn't a problem. Just thought I'd mention it :)